commercial, in a city that had a survey of poor housing conditions done by J.S. Woodsworth in 1913 and in a city that was the site of that famous CCF manifesto? In many respects, such editorialising is presented to the contempory compiler at the outset, given the social selectivity of early photographers. That noted, there is a good attempt at a cross-sectional view. But, if photos are to be used to illuminate more thanjust fashion, an 1886 group photo of men in front of a railway engine needs to tell us more than the fact that they were associated with the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Railway and Steamboat Company. Were they local businessmen, or Eastern Canadian or American entrepreneurs? Similarly, how strong was the CPR's control over the town? The only map in the volume is a blurry 1883 CPR townsite plan, with the railway right-of-way slashing diagonally across the grid. Many subsequent photos show the ongoing landscape effects of this central landuse. More research on the town's municipal relations with the CPR, from the ccmparative perspective of 1978, could have helped underline these photos. Several panoramas are used from different time periods: fold outs might have helped preserve the intent and the impact of such vistas,for they show the transformation from false-front wooden stores and shacks to a provincial capital in which public works, borne out of Depression needs, contribute the pleasant dimensions that the CPR and others needn't or wouldn't contribute earlier. The CPR, the Royal North West Mounted Police and the CCF all have connections with Regina; one goes elsewhere to find detailed scholarship on such central elements of Canadian society. Though the visuals are often striking, the text does not use them to full potential in highlighting these significant Regina-based developments.

Regina before Yesterday is a parochial celebration, and the positive qualities of that adjective reveals something of Dr. Brennan and his committee's priorities in trying to capture a community's evolution in this family album manner. Lost Toronto is equally parochial, more negatively in that it appeals to a narrow audience, but equally it reveals as much about the priorities of its author's professional background as it does the subject matter. Deryck Holdsworth University of Toronto

Steam into Wilderness. Northland Railway, 1902-1962. ALBERT TUCKER. Toronto: Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1978. viii, 214 p., ill. maps. ISBN 088902 444 8 bd. $19.95 0 88902 558 4 pa. $9.95.

A steam locomotive forges ahead through clouds of vapour, smoke and snow across the cover of Albert Tucker's history of the Ontario Northland Railway. It draws behind it the typical ingredients of rail romanticism - idealised beginnings, heroic engineering feats, political interference and life-line service to isolated communities.

Northern Ontario in the early twentieth century was seen as an exciting new frontier ripe for the exploitation of timber and mineral resources and new agricultural opportu- nities in the great clay belt north of Lake Timiskaming. In a unique break with the Cana- dian tradition of an east-west axis, the Ontario Government struck north with its railway, under the direction of the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway Commission - known after 1946 as the Ontario Northern Transportation Commission. The aim of Premier Ross' administration was to stem some of the Canadian Pacific assisted immigrant movement to the western prairies and re-direct it to the clay belt. A railway would encourage both the settlement of North-eastern Ontario and, significantly, create a bulwark against French Canadian encroachment. BOOK REVIEWS 175

Combining both dramatic and compassionate description, Tucker propels his story along at a rapid clip by highlighting a multiplicity of events and affairs associated with the construction and evolution of the railway. Included are the discovery of both silver and gold, the response of the T. & N.O. railway in assisting victims of three major conflagra- tions, the extension of the railway from Cochrane to James Bay, and the intimate service provided to the farmers and townsfolk along the route. Portraits of personalities, indi- vidual and collective, are woven into the story with a refreshing dash of colour. Problems do arise, however, when Tucker ventures beyond the confines of the narra- tive. Armed with a battery of sources ranging from taped interviews to the premiers' cor- respondence files he attempts to demonstrate that the story of the railway underscores broad political and economic issues which shaped the development of Northern Ontario. Blatant examples of political patronage originating with either the Liberal or Conserva- tive Party establishments are exposed. Little credence is given to the notion that the T.&N.O. was the peoples' railway. Rather the imperial influence of the Toronto business community and the clearly intrusive power of the premier over the Commission are shown to be factors which more accurately define the nature of the public utility. The recognition of these wider issues is one thing and their development into a continuous, sound argu- ment is quite another. In this respect Tucker's work is lacking. New ideas are abandoned too often at their germinating stages and chapter endings signal what is to follow with tire- some predictability. Similarly, Tucker does not appear to utilize the potential of the extensive range of ma- terials outlined in his footnotes. His linear narrative offers little more than a clipped and at times superficial analysis of the underlying issues. The absence of a bibliographic evalua- tion of the major archival resources is unfortunate, given the meagre output of Ontario historiography. Viv Nelles pointed the way to a new understanding of Ontario's north in his The Politics of Development. Albert Tucker has broken new ground still with his story of the Northland Railway, but others will need to examine carefully the spaces left in his book before embarking upon a more rigorous study of Northern Ontarioin the twentieth century. Robert Tapscott Archives of Ontario

The Lumberjacks. DONALD MACKAY. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, @ 1978. 319 p. ill. ISBN 0 07 82727 3 $19.95.

7he Lumberjacks is one of a series of popular oral histories which have been appearing in the last decade in an effort to record the lives of working people. Donald Mackay has chosen, for his volume, a group of working Canadians which more than any other might be regarded as Canada's folk heroes. As a long-time journalist and broadcaster, Mackay has travelled from coast to coast to interview over one hundred and thirty men and a few women who spent from months to lifetimes in the lumber camps of the Maritimes, , Ontario and British Columbia. He delivers in The Lumberjacks what its dust- jacket promises: "a story of the men who cut and hauled timber from the birth of the in- dustry until the internal combustion engine changed lumbering techniques in the 1950's." Despite its claim to begin at the beginning, the book is essentially about lumbering during this century - of pulpwood cutters in the East and cutters of sawlogs and pulpwood in the rainforests of British Columbia. The first century of the industry -the square timber beginning in the early years of the nineteenth century and sawn-lumber appearing at mid-century - is quickly covered in the first three chapters. Here the contents are disappointing. Mackay's approach to this period is fragmented and thin.